


Panem with Parents: Happy HallowThanksChristmasNewYear Birthday Housewarming

by TabbyCatLibrarian



Series: Panem with Parents [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Birthday, Childbirth, Christmas, Costume Parties & Masquerades, F/F, F/M, Halloween, Holidays, House Party, Infertility, Jealousy, M/M, Marriage, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27970499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TabbyCatLibrarian/pseuds/TabbyCatLibrarian
Summary: “I have nightmares.”“Babe—““Both of us are in the games at the same time and the president is that evil guy who made $900 trillion selling payday loans.”Or, very much alive Prim is on the outside looking in at the busy Everlark household when the future of the Hunger Games is altered by adults around Lucy Gray Baird using their brain cells.(Also, part of this will happen at our homes when lockdown ends in...it’s gotta end, right?)
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair, Blight/Johanna Mason, Brutus & Enobaria (Hunger Games), Cashmere/Thresh (Hunger Games), Cato/Clove (Hunger Games), Cinna/Portia (Hunger Games), Haymitch Abernathy/Effie Trinket, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark, Primrose Everdeen/Gale Hawthorne, Rue/Wheaton Mellark, Rye Mellark/Madge Undersee
Series: Panem with Parents [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894570
Kudos: 3





	Panem with Parents: Happy HallowThanksChristmasNewYear Birthday Housewarming

**Back in the Days (before anyone knew Snow was 83 years old in the 74th games and Tigris should have been collecting a social security check, not reconciling the cash drawer, just saying...)**

The wandering band of travelers had landed outside of District 12 the previous day, yet only the Covey scouts visited inside. Lucy Gray Baird looked around in confusion as the parents and leaders gathered together in a huddle.

“What’s going on?” she asked the girl beside her.

“How should I know? I’m standing right next to you witnessing the same thing. I’m not psychic.”

Lucy rolled her eyes, the only sign of emotion aside from sighing teens are allowed in novels for young adults. “You could have heard something.”

The brunette looked ticked. “I don’t have bionic ears or super human—”

“Lucy, Daria, shut up!” Greta, an elderly woman, hissed. “You’re not helping.”

Daria’s dusky skin flushed red. “She started it—”

“Did I ask who started it? Do you think I care?”

Daria cared. “This trick hid a tarantula in her titty!”

“If you have time to complaint and fuss, I have vegetables with your names on them. Scrub, scrub.” She pointed to the hand washing station and the aprons. Grumbling, they got to work, their eyes less on the water potatoes and more on the parents.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Lucy wondered.

“Girl, if you don’t end this—”

“We should —”

“Can it.”

“But—”

“I don’t want to hear nothing from you.”

“What did I ever do to you?”

“Besides act like the crazy side chick in a Lifetime Movie Event? You do things that make me surprised that you survived past age ten.” This girl grated on Daria. “By the way, if the snake stuff doesn’t stop, you will wake up dead and I’ll get acquitted.”

Lucy huffed. “I just want to get inside the district. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a shower?”

“Yes. Because I can smell you.” It wasn’t as bad as the guys, but it was still there. “After we’re done waxing on and off and painting the fence, I’m taking you to the river so you can scrub your floor. Those feet look like they could walk off without you—”

“Girls!” Greta screeched. “Shut your pie holes and scrub faster!”

Ten minutes later, the group leader made an announcement.

“Hear ye, hear ye, Panem is still participating in the Hunger Games. It would be dumber than rocks for us to put our offspring in danger. I hereby declare we use common sense. We are not entering district limits until after they have selected which children they will murder on live television and tomorrow we will move at least five miles away. That said, if they raid the camp, hide. If you can’t hide and they ask your age, if you are ten through pre-puberty, what do you say?”

“I’m nine!” the younger crowd said enthusiastically.

“Very good. Should you get caught, your parents have three years to dig a hole under the fence and leave. The rest of you already have your fake papers and IDs from Arizona, the place half of all drunk underaged college students listed on their fake driver’s license. If you’re older, what do you say?”

The bored looked groups answered, “I’m nineteen, “I’m twenty,” and, “I’m twenty-one,” many of them rolling their eyes.

“Very good. You’re older, but shorter due to malnutrition. For those who keep asking, it’s more suspicious if everyone is eleven or nineteen, and it’s best if those of you who look older say you’re older. What do we say if they ask about the ten through eighteen year olds?”

The group sounded like a chorus. “Their parents took them to Canada.”

Of course Canada wasn’t letting them in. When the really rich people fled to New Zealand and Zimbabwe, Canada actually built a wall to keep out the broke refugees of the former United States of Amazon Prime/Fidelity, what the United States of America was called after they sold their naming rights.

“Excellent. Now, what is our stance on anyone caught who says their real age?”

“We don’t need you in our gene pool.” The adults shouted, eyeing certain teens who would be thrown to the wolves of the group was caught.

“Great. Should you be caught, tell them you’re a singer and a dancer, but you want to break into acting. Their eyes should glaze over when you ask if they want to hear your demo tape of yodeling country rap music. If that doesn’t work, ladies, gentlemen, you have assets. Use them. If all else fails, you’ll be old enough to get a steady, low wage job that shouldn’t exist anymore seeing as the population is small enough to be sustained by solar, hydroelectric, and wind power like Norway. Be sure your papers are in order and memorize your birth year. Say your birthdates backwards and forwards in your minds and out loud. I’ll give you a few minutes to rehearse.” They murmured to themselves throughout the exercise.

“This is dumb,” Lucy complained after saying her fake birthday for the fifth time.

“Not as dumb as knowingly putting your life at risk in a death match,” Daria dead panned. “My children’s first sentence will be, ‘I’m nineteen years old.’”

“No one will believe that.”

“They will when they see my weapon.” She’d whittled a knife out of wood to go along with her metal set. “I am not letting them take my kids without a fight, and I have to do what my parents did for me. There was enough chaos during the war and aftermath for them to lie about my birthdate. My birth certificate says I’m twenty-nine.”

They were relatively quiet for a while as they diced carrots. Then Lucy ruined it by singing.

“Some day my prince will come...”

 _Yeah, too early and without protection,_ Daria thought snidely.

After a few minutes, the leader spoke again. “Nineteen through twenty-one year olds, you’re in charge of the children while a few of us get supplies and hunt for animals to breed and plants to grow. Should anyone ask your relation to those kids, what is your response?”

“We’re their parents.”

Lucy grabbed Daria. “Come on. There’s enough babysitters here. Let’s bathe before dinner.”

“Isn’t that what the teenaged victims said before the serial killer stabbed them in their bare chests in Lake Placid Cabin in the Woods?”

“You said you were older, so we’re okay.”

Daria glared at Lucy. “Really? Did you...I just can’t even.”

“Can’t even what?”

Sighing, Daria went to get her toiletries and imagined strangling Lucy for being too moronic to breathe, or apparently to perform a basin bath and a foot scrub before she entered her abode each night. She’d stepped out of her home and ran into her Great Aunt Greta, who was in charge of her when her parents were in meetings.

“Where are you going?”

Daria shrugged. “Lucy needs hosing down.”

Greta was going to stop Daria from leaving, but Lucy did need a good washing. Was her hair even that color, or was that dirt?

 _Teenagers_.

“Agreed. Gather your things and get a head start to moving to the lake.”

”Huh?”

”Take this cart of food and supplies to stake out the best spot. Lucy can help you. I’m putting you in charge of her. She wanders away, it’s your job to find her.”

Daria looked at Lucy, a girl who would follow a clown into a sewer if he offered her a red balloon.

“Great...”

**********  
Because they were down by the lake when everyone else was rounded up, Lucy Gray Baird was not reaped in the 10th games.

Those games were a disaster. Networks refused to air them because they couldn’t compete with the top rated show “Cats are Awesome,” which was nothing but a camera trained on shelter kittens playing with boxes while an ASMR artist whispered into alternating ear mics. Lucy and Daria headed west, where Lucy got a casino residency singing and dancing with a live boa constrictor to Britney Spears and Aaliyah songs. Instead of disappearing into the woods, she ran off with Neil Snow, the creepy guy who buys bottle service at clubs because women would have to talk to him when they got too tired standing in stilettos but didn’t want to pay the $100 necessary for a venue owner to allow them to sit. Lucy married him and he found a way to ruin more lives than the Hunger Games ever could:

He reintroduced reality TV and payday loans.

It wasn’t until 74 years after the Dark Days ended that it was decided even the mafia wouldn’t charge people 1200% interest per year and the practice was abolished.

The same could not be said for reality TV.

By then, the Snows were richest people in history and retired to a Capitol mansion that took up six city blocks. Every holiday, Lucy sang and baked cookies for their four sons, fifteen grandchildren and their great-grandchildren, and her daughters-in-law steered the kids clear of Grandpa and refused to let them be in a room with him unless two adult women were present. Grandma Lucy did not count as one of those women...

But Aunt Daria Flickerman and her daughters did.

**********

** Eight Decades Later... **

“I can’t believe the government used to kill children on live TV and only ended it due to low ratings.”

Katniss Everdeen looked over at Peeta Mellark laid out on the couch, their baby Hyacinth cuddled on his chest, asleep after a fitful night of teething, her soft black curls contrasting with his blonde ones. They were such a beautiful sight...unlike what was on TV. “Peeta, how many times do I have to tell you not to watch the History Channel?”

“What did you want me to watch, Law and Order: Victims vs. Predators or NCIS: Naval Nursing Home?”

“Both are having specials to celebrate their 140 something season. It’s gotta be better than what you’re watching.”

“That’s doubtful. I can’t believe they froze Mark Harmon’s brain to insert into a new body so he could still play Gibbs.” Peeta rubbed his daughter’s back as she made snuffling noises in her sleep. “At least I’m not watching The Simpsons, Celebrity and Random Pedestrian Elopement, hologram LL Cool J chase a perp through Chicago Med Station 19,  and this isn’t that program on how Hitler traveled through time to visit ancient aliens and have them assassinate Abraham Lincoln.”

Katniss was sure if time travel existed, they would skip politics and go back and stop the creation of The Bachelor franchise. Then again, rumor had it that were it not for the show, network scientists wouldn’t have worked so hard to find the cures for STIs and 100% effective birth control so they could charge viewers a premium to see what happened in their fantasy suites without the recap involving antibiotics and paternity tests. “You can watch Game of Thrones. I heard George R. R. Martin’s descendent finally finished the last book.” 

Viewing choices were severely limited since Disney/HBO-Netflix made politicians extend copyright indefinitely. Now all that aired was reality TV and derivative works from programming originating in the pre-Dark Days. This would be okay if the works got new storylines, but only Tyler Perry’s descendants had created anythinggood lately. Madea’s The Girl on the Train, a story where a grandmotherly figure forces three bored underemployed suburban women to get therapy, full time jobs, and mind their own business, was the #1 comedy of the year, but their competition was Toy Story 25 and Dumb, Dumber and Dumbester Part 18.3. Fans were really hoping the 71st season of GoT would conclude the dragon clone wars.

“Yeah, right. I’ll believe it when I see the publication date on Amazon Kohl’s Costco’s site.” He kissed the top of the baby’s head, avoiding the look he could feel Katniss giving him.

“Peeta, Hyacinth is eight months old. You need to put her in her crib.”

“Katniss, you can’t spoil a baby,” he said, giving her that blue eyed puppy dog look. He has such a soft spot for his daughter.

She scowled, her gray eyes narrowed. “Says the man not tending newborns in the middle of the night.”

“I lack the proper equipment,” he pointed out.

“We could change that.”

“But that would hurt.” There were meds to make men lactate, but few took them because it required chest waxing to stop babies from grabbing their hair. Initial study participants acted like chest hair pulling was as painful as admitting you were wrong. “She had a rough night.”

“Yes, but you keep that up, when the buns in my oven get here, you’ll be juggling three babies.” Dr. Aurelis had confirmed a boy and a girl, ten weeks along. It was too soon to tell anyone...

Especially Prim.

Peeta rose to put Hyacinth down in the study. Because babies had to rest ALONE, on their BACK, in an empty CRIB, he made sure her onesie kept her at the right temperature before turning on the monitor. He returned to the family room to see the juxtaposition of Hyacinth’s pop up crib on a small screen and bloody gore projected across the wall.

“Peeta! Turn that off!”

“Sorry.” He fumbled with the remote before Hyacinth’s face filled the space.

“I don’t even know why they’re playing that today.” Usually they saw Hunger Game documentaries in June on the anniversary of the events.

“Treasure hunters discovered recordings stating the government planned to erase the history of the disastrous 10th games by not airing it and keeping the master copy under lock and key.”

To that, Katniss laughed. Citizens still had footage of the LAPD beating a motorist in a situation that created a riot and video of Justin Timberlake exposing Janet Jackson’s pixilated breast during a Super Bowl halftime wardrobe malfunction some two centuries after it occurred. It was odd to believe no one recorded the Hunger Games when descendants of Holocaust survivors emphasized the need to remember atrocities. “Yeah, I guess they were shocked to discover every librarian, archivist, historian, civil rights organizer, victim’s family, child predator and the people who make bootleg copies of movies trained cameras to projector screens and recorded it on hard drives.” As unpopular as the games were, at least 5000 homemade copies still existed of each one. Few of the overall population watched, but an average of 2000 people recorded per district, more so in larger districts, with civil rights groups creating transcripts, drawings and lists documenting it, transferring recordings to new mediums as they became available. When injustice occurred, people armed themselves with cameras. “A good one thousand parents and siblings were directly affected in a time of low population and I’m to believe none of them started a group, turned their homes into a shrine and had a replay of their child’s death showing on loop projected on the side of their house? Heck, even Creepy Cray from Mom’s old job had copies. There are plenty of psychos who like watching...” she couldn’t continue.

Walking over to his love, Peeta hugged her close. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not. How could they...” Katniss couldn’t fathom a world where children could die while parents did nothing. 

“I know, I know.” 

“I have nightmares.”

“Babe—“

“Both of us are in the games at the same time and the president is that evil guy who made $900 trillion selling payday loans—“

“Don’t think. We’re safe.” He caressed her stomach. “Everything is fine.”

Kissing her started out as comfort, a simple peck at her tousled dark hair, a caress of her petite back through her thin T-shirt to forget the images they both somehow shared, but it quickly escalated until they were a tangle of limbs and discarded clothes on the couch.

Panting, Katniss scrambled off of Peeta’s broad chest, searching for her bra. “The time!”

Peeta saw the digital clock. “We have time.”

“Thirty minutes! Hurry!”

Right before a party was not the moment to get naughty. The whole point of this party was to establish a firm finish deadline for completing their home. Three weeks before, the contractors finished the electronics and landscaping. Next came furniture placement, artwork, finishing the garage, set up and party arrangements. They transported their coupon hauls of food and supplies. Yesterday was for defrosting. Having planned ahead, they’d filled their freezer with loaded mashed potatoes, truffle infused macaroni and cheese, lemony green bean casserole, Chile-maple Brussel sprouts, collard greens, cheese bread, orange cranberry sauce, cornbread stuffing, black eyed peas, cornbread squares, meatball casserole and sweet potato black bean enchiladas to bake off in their quadruple ovens and crock pots. That morning they’d received delivery for braised rabbit, roasted goose, sliced fried turkey and spiral ham. They had turkey and cranberry apricot cream cheese pinwheels, peanut butter and jam pinwheels, hummus and roasted vegetable wraps, crudités cups with spinach dip and fruit salad cups. The beverage and dessert stations were set up with mini Bundt cakes—pumpkin, eggnog pound cake, butter pecan, dark chocolate, banana—cookies, mini caramel apples and rice crispy treats on foil cupcake liners, and mini pies. Kids had lower seating with puzzles, toys and coloring sheets to keep them occupied. Everything was set and guests were arriving soon...

In costumes.

Rushing, Katniss and Peeta showered together and only got mildly distracted. Toweling off, brushing her teeth and smoothing on lotion, she entered her walk-in closet, greeted by a sea of green, gray, brown, black, white and orange clothes. Her outfit for today consisted of a backless Art Deco inspired gold-accented ankle length gown that perfectly matched her skin and low gold sandals. Peeta was in a white and tan coordinating suit that made his tightly toned butt look really good. Since Hyacinth liked pulling on loose hair, Katniss put her long mane in a high bun. Add in facial cream, lip balm and mascara, and she was good to go.

Their guests were late.

“Where are they?” Katniss wondered as she made Peeta apply moisturizer and lip balm. “They were supposed to be done visiting Finnick already. I want to get this show in the road.”

Checking the security cameras, Peeta saw no one. “Well...I guess we can do a five minute chore.”

Katniss looked at him. “The cleaners were in two days ago and return in five hours.” It was somewhat late to have cleaners in, but they didn’t want to hear remarks about them hiring services. Not that Cashmere, Johanna, Rue or Madge would say anything, but Gale, Prim and Cressida likened fairly hiring help to harvesting their organs and eating their flesh. It’s why they made signature dishes well ahead of time with the help of their go-to student caterers and wouldn’t acknowledge everything else was replated store bought and drop off catering. No one needed to know diced ham, cheddar and cream cheese were thrown in with marked down deli mashed potatoes. With the delivery evidence disposed of, who was to say they hadn’t slaved away all day? “The big stuff is out the way.”

Hmm, this was true. “Have you checked your email today?”

When their first wave of guests arrived forty-seven minutes later, their in-boxes and trashcans were clear, the master suite sparkling, sinks disinfected, multiple coupon surveys filled out, and Hyacinth was awake after a changing and feeding.

“They’re here!” Katniss called to Peeta as she fluffed Hyacinth’s yellow tutu and sweater, fixing her golden sun headband. “Stop playing with the bidet seat!”

“But the bowl cleaning function is so much cooler than our last one.”

“No cares!”

With a quick check in the foyer mirror, she opened the black double doors to greet their guests. Looking somewhat disgruntled, Rye and Madge Mellark, Vick and Delly Hawthorne, Blight and Johanna Snow, Rory and Darius Hawthorne-Richardson, Enobaria and Brutus Davidson, Annie and Finnick O’Dair, Posy and Tax Lopez, Cashmere and Thresh Aaron-Adams, Wheaton and Rue Adams-Mellark, Lavinia and Glimmer Kowalski-Schmidt, Cato and Clove Davidson, and Marvel Davidson huddled on their wraparound porch. “You’re late,” Katniss said. Hyacinth snuggled into her neck, shy around the crowd.

Rye shrugged, brushing off his navy suit and trying not to ogle his sister-in-law in that dress. It was difficult because between the material and the coloring, it looked like she was naked save for strategically placed gold bands. “But we’re here now.”

Taking a deep breath in, Peeta reminded himself it was just a party. “Welcome. And you are dressed as...”

“I’m an accountant,” lawyer Rye replied before he gestured to his middle manager wife and their toddler in their suits. “So are Madge and Chandler.”

Everyone was in some sort of costume. Most were business people, though Thresh and Cashmere were Bonnie and Clyde and Jo and Blight were mimes.

That had to be Blight’s idea.

Peeta gestured inside. “We’ll wait in the family room until others arrive, but the main event is to the left of me.”

“Where’s the left?” Blight asked.

Wheaton took one look at Rue and covered his wife’s mouth with his hand. She shot daggers at him and tried to hand baby Martin off to her brother Thresh so she could fight back, but Thresh shook his head.

“Follow me, honey,” Johanna said, reminding herself that Blight was mostly silent, gave good massages and was great in bed. Plus his head might be empty, but Blight Snow’s bank account overflowed. It was why they had the most successful and longest marriage of any reality tv pairing. Stepping inside, she took in the honey stained plank floors and painted wood molding. “Wow, this place really shaped up.”

“It’s more than I dreamed of,” Peeta admitted.


End file.
